Federal, state, and school deadlines for your aid cycle, with days remaining
| State | Deadline | State | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | Jan 15, 2026 (priority) | Massachusetts | May 1, 2026 (priority) |
| Missouri | Feb 2, 2026 (priority) | Maine | May 1, 2026 |
| Connecticut | Feb 15, 2026 (priority) | Florida | May 15, 2026 |
| California | Mar 2, 2026 (postmarked) | Delaware | May 15, 2026 |
| Idaho | Mar 1, 2026 (priority) | North Carolina | Jun 1, 2026 (UNC system) |
| Maryland | Mar 1, 2026 | Washington, DC | Jun 25, 2026 (priority) |
| West Virginia | Mar 1, 2026 (PROMISE) | Arkansas | Jul 1, 2026 |
| Tennessee | Mar 2, 2026 (Promise/lottery) | Michigan | Jul 1, 2026 |
| Arizona | Apr 1, 2026 (priority) | New York | Jun 30, 2027 |
| Kansas | Apr 1, 2026 (priority) | Louisiana | Jul 1, 2027 (file by Feb 1, 2026) |
| Mississippi | Apr 30, 2026 (HELP Grant) | New Jersey | Apr 15, 2026 (TAG) |
| Indiana | Apr 15, 2026 (O'Bannon) | Pennsylvania | May 1, 2026 (most applicants) |
ASAP states (first-come until funds run out): Alaska, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, Washington. Check with your aid office: Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota (30th day of term), Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming. State deadlines shift a little every cycle, so confirm on your state agency's page before relying on a date.
| Deadline | 2026-27 Cycle | What It Governs |
|---|---|---|
| FAFSA opens | Oct 1, 2025 | Earliest submission; soft-launch pauses possible in first days |
| Federal deadline | Jun 30, 2027, 11:59 p.m. CT | Pell Grant, federal loans, work-study eligibility |
| Corrections cutoff | Sept 12, 2027 | Fixes and updates to a filed FAFSA |
| College priority dates | Varies (often Feb-Apr) | Institutional grants and scholarships — set by each school |
"When is the FAFSA due?" has three answers, and only one of them is June 30. The federal deadline is generous; state grants and school aid are not. This tool lines up all three clocks for your state and cycle so the earliest one that matters is the one you plan around.
Pick your school year and state. The calculator loads that cycle's opening date, federal deadline (June 30 after the school year ends), corrections cutoff, and your state's published deadline, then computes calendar days remaining against today. For ASAP states it flags the file-early strategy instead of a date, because that's genuinely what the state publishes: awards stop when the pool empties.
Choose the cycle that matches your enrollment (fall 2026 through summer 2027 is the 2026-27 form). Your state's deadline shown is for state grant programs; your college's own priority date can be earlier, so check each school's aid page too. For the 2027-28 cycle, federal dates are set and state dates publish around the October 2026 opening — the calculator tells you to plan on the same pattern until then.
A Texas high school senior planning to start college in fall 2026 files the 2026-27 FAFSA. The form opened October 1, 2025. Texas grants priority consideration to forms processed by January 15, 2026, while the federal deadline of June 30, 2027 is a full 21 months after opening. If she files on January 14, 2026, she beats the state priority date with a day to spare, but Texas applicants who filed in October got the same review with zero stress and access to first-come institutional aid — that's why "file in the first six weeks" is the standing advice. A California friend's math is even sharper: Cal Grants go by the March 2, 2026 postmark, and community college students get a second September 2 shot.
Once the form is in, the real question becomes what aid it produces. The SAI calculator estimates your Student Aid Index and Pell eligibility, and the Parent PLUS calculator prices the federal loan most families layer on top.
The federal deadline is 11:59 p.m. Central Time on June 30 after the school year ends, so June 30, 2027 for the 2026-27 FAFSA, with corrections allowed until mid-September. But the deadline that actually matters is usually your state's, which can land as early as February, and your college's priority date, which is often earlier still. Aid at most schools is first-come, so the real answer is October through December.
The FAFSA returns to the traditional October 1 opening: the 2026-27 form became available October 1, 2025, and the 2027-28 form is expected around October 1, 2026. Recent cycles launched through a short soft-launch window with occasional pauses for maintenance, so if the site is briefly unavailable in the first days, try again the next morning.
Federal aid stays open until the June 30 deadline, and you can even file retroactively in limited cases, so federal Pell and loans are rarely fully lost. What you miss with a late filing is state grants and institutional aid with earlier deadlines, plus first-come pools that run dry. File the moment you realize you're behind.
Because their grants are awarded first-come, first-served until the money runs out. States like Alaska, Illinois, Kentucky, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington (plus many others) set no hard calendar deadline; they simply stop awarding when funds are depleted. In those states, filing in the opening weeks is worth more than any other date strategy.
Yes. The FAFSA covers one academic year at a time, so every student refiles annually with updated tax information. Most renewal applicants get pre-filled fields and finish faster than the first time, but deadlines and state timing reset completely each cycle.
There's no income cutoff for submitting, and high-income families still need a FAFSA on file for federal loans, work-study, and most school merit aid. Schools also use it to build aid packages you can't access without it. The general rule: file it every year regardless of income.